The world economy at 20

Next month will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This also makes it the 20th anniversary of the birth of the new global economy. At the Wednesday Lunch on 21 October, Mark Thirlwell, Director of the Institute’s international economy program, looked at some of the forces shaping the world economy during its first two decades: a period bookmarked at one end by the collapse of communism and the triumph of the market, and at the other by global financial crisis and the rise of state capitalism, and one which has included the Asian financial crisis, the dot-com bubble, the launch of the euro, the creation of the WTO, China’s emergence as a major global economic player, and the ascendancy of the G-20.